It all kind of reminded me of my early years of dating, when every guy I brought home had just gotten off of a tour vehicle of some sort or spent much of their free time peddling records and buying vintage cowboy shirts. They would always look, unsteadily, with four eyes or a smidge of eyeliner, at my dad and talk about their hopes for the future.

It often sounded an awful lot like this:

“I definitely want to like, manage a record shop.”

“We’re gonna sell a bunch of albums. Maybe go to Japan!”

“I’ll probably take some classes sometime.”

My dad would always raise his eyebrows in bewilderment and nod us off. I knew that with our backs turned he would be shaking his head at me, imagining his youngest daughter barefoot and pregnant alongside a 40-year old record store clerk. “These guys,” he would say later, “they have no ambition, no goals. What kind of future do you think they will have?”

I assume that if he heard about Blaine’s long-held ambitions he would scowl something in the same vein: “Holding his breath is his lifelong dream? Tell him to breathe and go to college, get a job!”